Soapbox Engage Blog

First, I need to point out to the world that I am simply the messenger of all this wonderful news we have about the Salesforce.com - Joomla integration. Our lead developer on this, Kevin Devine, has put long nights and sweat into what is shaping to be a fantastic contribution to the open source community.

Now that all your thank you messages are pointed in the right direction, let me give an update as to what Kevin's got cooking. Two days ago we were successfully able to push/pull data to/from Joomla and Salesforce. This means that we can now display data from Salesforce directly in Joomla, and then edit that data via forms in Joomla back into Salesforce. It all happens rather quickly, which is a little surprising since the data has to go back and forth between two servers in completely different parts of the US.

Dynamic display of layout features

Today Kevin just hit another major milestone. Now we're able to bring in form fields from Salesforce following the layout rules prescribed within Salesforce. For instance, say in your Salesforce layout you have a dropdown list for a contact's suffix. Now without any hassle you can have Joomla directly display that dropdown populated properly from Salesforce.

Pretty darn cool.

Someone had to step up and do it, so PICnet is doing it. We're bringing a fully connected Salesforce.com component to the Joomla community, and should have a beta version ready for download by the middle of January 2007.

The goal here is to build a strong framework that future developers (including ourselves in our Non-Profit Soapbox system) can continue to extend. For instance, our J!Salesforce component will allow Joomla site visitors to input their contact information in Salesforce through Joomla, using a simple form. Then, when a visitor returns to the Web site, they can login using the Joomla login form, be authenticated against Salesforce.com, and then be able to edit their contact information in Salesforce securely.

Pretty darn powerful.

We're proud to be the first ones developing this connection for the Joomla community, and look forward to working with the Salesforce Foundation to help spread the good word to our non-profit users. Don't worry business users, we've got something in store for you too.

We should be rolling out a roadmap to the development of this component, as well as add-ons for J!Salesforce at the end of December 2006. What would be nice is to hear from the community as to what users and developers would like to have this integration piece do for them, so we can make sure we're meeting the needs of the community.

Joomla Tuesdays are coming back. And for those who continue to doubt that someone with an art history degree can run a web site? We want you there.

When we built Soapbox, PICnet's low-cost, easy-to-set-up content management system exclusively for Non-Profits, we used the Joomla! content management system as its foundation. There were lots of reasons for that. But the main was that Joomla's -- and, by extension, Soapbox's -- universally acclaimed ease-of-use makes it a great fit for many nonprofits, who often make do without a large technical staff.

Sitting on one of the Joomla working groups, I see a lot of interesting conversations go across the boards.  Often times, there are quite vibrant discussions on the new Joomla 1.5 framework, especially when it comes to developer opinions.

One of the great members of the documentation working group, Ian, put together the following board post regarding his realization of the power of the new Joomla 1.5 MVC (model, view, controller) methodology that had me laughing.

Our good friends at Aspiration are always up to something exciting, and this time, they've outdone themselves again. Since Gunner has a much better way of putting these events to words than I can, below is a great copy/paste from their email announcement, which I think sums up the event nicely.

What we're looking forward to is what I consider a cross of management and development skill sets, since this will be more focused on systems than the Advocacy Developers conferences, and more output driven than the tried project management summit in NYC last year. I highly recommend that those in our NPO/NGO community that are pushing forward non-profit software solutions to come join us!

And now, a few words from Aspiration about the event.

PICnet is looking for an entry level Project Manager to help lead the development of Web projects for its non-profit, association, and congressional clients.

We're looking for individuals with experience in the Web development process and the non-profit community, who are eager to provide high-quality service to our proud client base.

At PICnet, we provide a unique environment for non-profits to build their online presence. Our high-touch, high-quality service is what separates us from the crowd, and keeps our client list expanding.

The individual who takes this position will have strong knowledge of the Web development process and crystal clear communication skills. Juggling multiple projects at the same time is the name of the game, and working with developers located in various locations is the challenge.

Although the position does not require a Web programming background, basic understanding of the Joomla CMS, PHP or MySQL is definitely helpful.